I'm reviewing the beta - and I think this might be the first proper review I've ever given, so hopefully I won't miss anything!

Saw this game, was instantly reminded of the time i was a child and figured out how lobotomies worked in Creatures 2, impulse purchased immediately.

Game overcame my severe adhd and my first time playing it lasted for several hours, fascinated and able to focus on it even though I don't have anything more than a layman's education in genetics/genome sequencing/etc. This was... really, really fun, even though it's not even out of early access yet. it really gets your noggin joggin.

PROS:

- I get to play god with innocent creatures that did nothing to deserve my insane meddling

- I get to put flowers on seaweed

- one time i got psychedelic 2-colored seaweed i just stared at for like 3 minutes

- I can make everything lavender colored

- At the moment I'm using an integrated graphics chipset and I can run this game smoothly; there's a bit of stuttering and slowness here and there when I have a lot going on in my tank at once but it's a game in beta, unoptomized, and i'm running it on a computer that could probably be overpowered by an old potato. That's really good, in my opinion.

- I am photosensitive irl and normally I have to heavily tweak and even mod games so they dont cause me pain and potentially physically damage my eyesight. I did not have to do anything to make this game gentle to my eyes except fiddle with a single bloom slider that's already provided in the options. I do not care if this was intended or a happy accident, I only care that it was possible. Thank you so much, dev!

- I was actually slowly able to learn concepts I didn't fully grasp from the in-game tutorials just by puttering around with the game afterwards, the game is really patient with you about that and I haven't once irreversibly destroyed a tank because I really screwed up bad in how I understood things like PH and what genomes do what.

- The one problem I was having with gene editing killing my plants and animals was solved by watching another person's kind youtube tutorial posted right up in the steam guide section for this game, who pointed out (much more intelligently than i'm about to put it) that basically if you change a genome to another genome that's the same color you can avoid that and it can really help you narrow down which thing does what and map them more accurately. They also offered a proper genome sheet and i'm sure it's very important and would help me out in my mad scientist work but my brain is too smooth and cute for me to figure it out (aka, I haven't googled a crash course on genomes yet)

- The personalities of the 2 scientists that teach you things in the tutorial were actually pretty distinct seeing as the tutorial is really the only place you see them interact, and the references had me chuckling. I kinda wanna see more of them, especially in the newly-added scenarios i spent *way* too much time fiddling with yesterday. They'll either murder each-other or begrudgingly help each other out of jams and I am 100% here for whichever outcome I get to see.

- this game is legitimately funny in a sardonic, wry sort of way, with some referential humor and also a lot of 'scientists why are you like this' humor.

- Never got an achievement that only 1% of players have achieved before now. It made me feel very special and important. Soon I will collapse and die under the weight of my own ego.

- game dabs on microtransactions and the ones "offered" in-game can only be purchased with literal in-game currency that the dev actually provides codes in his comments section to just immediately generate that currency to get. Or you could raise the insane amount of in-game money to get them legitimately, I suppose.... weirdo.

- one whole single dev made all of this and is just jamming update after update, bugfix after bugfix, in here at such a rapid pace that i think the man might secretly be a Terminator. When does he sleep!? It's like stardew valley in terms of effort and sheer quality, except this time you're a scientist creating entire vivarium worlds and selling your random lsd-lookin plants for 100 dollars each.

- I have a degree in professional and technical writing, and that involves studying a lot of linguistics (and writing too-long reviews on steam, i guess), and I found the way things were worded in here and the grammar that hinted at what other languages the dev might speak really fun to read instead of something that made the writing look bad. I kind of hope he doesn't change that aspect for a full release.

- The creatures have bright colors and it's pretty fascinating to see their different evolutions, the system seems to be made to be able to layer different appearances, textures, normalmaps, and gradients on the fly along with animation and points of articulation, which further backs up my view that the dev is secretly a Terminator that lacks human frailties.

- My flatworms evolved tiny, useless legs. I don't know why this was cute, but it was.

- my horrifying scorpion crabs 'contemplate the beauty of the world around', and i think that's beautiful.

CONS:

- The plants and the way you can modify pretty much every aspect of the world and its appearance look amazing; the animals are cute up close - so I was disappointed to note that I was struggling to see them well in the tank itself often. I realize it's probably like this in actual vivariums as well since they're tiny short-lived critters living in huge tanks full of colorful plants, so take this con with a fistful of salt maybe. I would also be really excited to see more behaviors for them to engage in and more personality types other than 'curious, aggressive, and mostly playful' so i could watch them; I realize with the game already having so much content to begin with, that's unreasonable to request from one lone dev however.

- I think my animals are trying to escape my vivarium because they always swim in legion to press their head against the glass of the right side of my tank as if with enough effort they can break it, and this hurts my feelings.

- I always have a hugely hard time with growing 'advanced shrublike plants with leaves low to the ground' that you need to grow certain specific animals to win scenarios. That was probably the only thing that legitimately frustrated me in several scenarios i played. I realize this is at least partly because I don't know much about genetics or chemistry or how ph affects different sorts of plants, so there's that. I do really hope that the dev will add some sort of hint system or expand the almanac in the game to include things like 'hey idiot bushes need this level of ph and this temperature in the tank' etc.

- Not entirely clear on what changing the temperature does, it never seemed to affect much.

- Was forced to learn from a scientist with a degree in mole fetuses. 0/10 would not recommend. Weirdo.

- Was forced to learn from another scientist who encouraged me to gamble. I'm calling the police.

- The camera system is a bit janky and I couldn't seem to get certain buttons to work even though i remapped them (like rotating the view, no matter what i changed that button to, i could still only rotate the view by slowly moving to the edge of my tank and then holding the mouse pointer or pressing the directional button against it to get it to rotate)

- cannot pan camera view yet or at least, i couldn't get it to work. It makes the interface feel clunky at first but it's pretty easy to adapt to within an hour or so.

- not many bugs, but the few there were crashed my game. I specifically kept having one when selling advanced tall seaweeds with flowers.

final view: 10/10 would recommend if you like this sort of proto-god simulator type stuff. I've missed that ever since the Creatures series. Steam wont let me write more so that's it i gu

Warning: This game is very early alpha! My review and opinions may chage as the game is updated.

Personally I LOVE the concept. As someone who played the Creatures series (another genetics based life sim) I am super excited to see where this goes!

The execution right now is a little rough. The camera felt wonky to me with the side to side buttons not always taking you where you think you should be going. Also, I don't know if this was just me or if it haven't been implimentd yet, but the game tutaorial for me stopped shortly after how to clip and arificially select plants. There are some many other things I don't know how to do!

I bought this game as an alpha because this s a niche that is near and dear to my heart, and I really hope this game gets every chance to grow and improve. But, even if you aren't willing to pay for a "wonky" alpha title, I reccomend keeping an eye on this in the future!

I love this game. I have two degrees in biology and I work with animals in behavior. I've always loved life simulation games, both for their entertainment value and for their ability to help us predict health and behaviors in animals and plants. A lot of games fell super short, either because they were made more layman friendly and were basically dumbed down, or because they were too early to have the tech to really do it right.

Creatura comes as close as I have ever seen to being as realistic as possible for a life simulation game.

Highlights:
-Ability to modify genes and DNA directly
-The creativity you can express in organisms through color and shape and size is almost unlimited, and the constant updates always add new stuff.
-Constant updates. Seriously, this dude is clearly working hard on the game. It crashes one day and the next is a bug fix for it.
-Constant updates II. New features, new objects, new genes to modify, this game is always getting better, and it is great to start with!
-UI, there is a bit of a learning curve but once you get over it the interface is actually really well done. I will be happy when the tutorial is a bit more polished and some things could probably use tooltips, but in general the learning curve, while slightly steep at first, is still pretty small. The interface in general is on a very good track to be great once done.
-Customizability; you want an aquarium? A terrarium? A mix? You want a tiny tank, a huge tank? Different sands, different water color and type even, temperature adjustability, filter adjustability, ph adjustability! They all exist but as of now aren't super frustrating or anything, you can just choose to not mess with them at all, it isn't like you need a chem degree to keep the tanks stable.

All in all as long as a life simulation game/playground is what you want, this game is a total winner. I am looking forward to many more hours of play, exploring the limits of the artificial life simulation, and enjoying the creative complexity it provides.

Very detailed virtual evolution vivarium simulator! Sandbox meets laboratory!

Creatura is a vivarium (liferoom, can be both an aquarium and a terrarium) simulator, in which you try to evolve basic specimens. You start with algae, which spawns Flatworms. From these you evolve every other plant or animal.
Plants
Plants can evolve naturally, via chemicals or via DNA manipulation. They can evolve many different aspects, such as size, branches, leaves, flowers, fruit, colour, and many other things. The evolution stays only during the life cycle of the plant, so you have to spot it and take cuttings, or the evolution is lost. Chemicals ought to give many evolutions, though my successes are nil. DNA manipulation works quite well, although it's difficult to find out what has changed.
Animals
Animals evolve naturally depending on the plants near their home. A family of maximum six animals live under an inanimate object. For every object you can create new families, which share their own genes. Unlike the plants, evolutions in animals do stay in next generations. If the evolution puts the animal in another species category, the animal automatically is separated into a new family, whether there is a free home or not.
Evolution in animals go quite rapidly, depending on the plants in the vivarium.. You can put chemicals on their home, this is more an endgame feature. And tinkering with their DNA results mostly in dead animals.

The techniques for rewriting DNA are dependant on how many species you have documented. Every newly encountered specie can be documented into your almanac. And most species are in some way new, slight alterations from others of its kind. You can create your own names, or use automatically generated Latin names. Examples: Nixvexoocteme Tigilgwecuni, or Ynibuv Cerxylique.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2503143569
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2503144181
The first level of DNA manipulation is via X-ray Radiation. Needless to say this has a very low chance of success. When you have documented enough, you learn Nuclei Injection, and lastly CRISPR-Cas9 Transcription. This has a good chance of success. Moral of the story, in beginning of the game it seems nearly impossible to tinker with the DNA, which is slightly frustrating. But even when successful, it's very hard to notice the difference.

Gonna spill my beans, I find this game complicated! The tutorial covers everything in rapid order (could do without the silly jokes). After the tutorial there are a couple of scenarios, in which you are prompted to spawn certain species. Well... I'm stuck on the very first scenario sadly... I'm supposed spawn a fish, and for that I need higher plants, and well, I am unable to spot the required evolution. I tried to do daylies to earn some money, to open some chests which spawn way too much, all of them filled with garbage! Or some chemicals, but no idea what they functionally do.

My 1080ti has quite a load during this game! The game offers many options to relief the GPU, but it's not often I hear the fans spin so vividly!

I like this game, but I would love to progress further. Hopefully a good guide will be published, or even better, good video tutorials! However I do recommend to anyone with an interest in biology, hopefully you're smarter than I!

67/100

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2502914533

I enjoyed Megaquarium , but it is an aquarium tycoon sim with polygon-like graphics that leave a lot to be desired visually. I also tried similar games in this niche category like FISHERY and Biotope (both in early access) while keeping my eye on Aquarist and Fishkeeper . Creatura, in its current state, is playable but not as enjoyable, detailed, nor beautiful as FISHERY. However, the Creatura developer keeps updating his project but slowly with minor changes, where you could say it is a solo effort. On the other hand, FISHERY has an effective team of developers with a sound vision of their future product. Biotope was overhyped by the gaming community (mostly paid social media reviewers) and quickly appeared to be abandoned by its developer, and many players feel scammed by the developer's false promises.

I know Creatura is trying to be evolution + aquarium sims, but unfortunately, it fails to deliver in both. I also played many evolution simulator sandboxes that suppress Creatura in many aspects that could be learned from like Earthtongue , Equilinox , SPORE and Vilmonic . However, I hope this project come back with a clear and robust concept and beautiful visuals, and I hope it will be very soon because Ecosystem with a very close idea to Creatura could be around the corner.

As an entomology and biology student with a fascination in evolution and invertebrate husbandry, I bought this game the second I discovered it and I was not disappointed. For an indie game, Creatura introduces concepts I have never seen before to the criminally underdeveloped evolution sim genre and certainly delivers on them. I watched as, just as in reality, every little change in my environments prompted new and exciting adaptations in plants and animals. Flatworms grew legs and antennae, morphing into small crustaceans to better exploit food and vegetation from the safety of a cave. Slugs grew to impressive sizes and began to develop gorgeous colors, complementing the growing array of diverse flora shapes and hues. Every centimeter of the vivarium was under my control -- I could shape the substrate to my liking, adjust the water level, move about plants and decorations; all upon a beautiful stage of intertwined art and science. The attention to detail was impressive, but there were a few unfortunate drawbacks.

My favorite features:

• Low skill floor and indefinite skill ceiling. It's fairly easy to get a hang of basic and intermediate mechanics, but you can never really predict what will happen with certainty.
  
• The game is a sandbox in that there's no correct way to play it, but there is still a sense of progression and advancement that makes you want to continue developing and observing your vivarium indefinitely.
  
• Plants, animals, and decorations all influence each other and allow for limitless combinations in myriad artificial environments, the results of which can mirror reality or surpass imagination.
  
• As you create, log, and name countless species, you add to an ever-expanding phylogenetic tree that allows you to trace the life in your vivarium back to the very first plants and worms.
  
• You can sequence the genome of practically every organism in the vivarium and compare codons (pieces of genetic code) to find which are responsible for various traits that can later be produced in other organisms via genetic modification.

My grievances:

• It can be difficult and frustrating to pick up the correct plant clipping or decoration and place it where you want. The decorations can have some wonky physics that seem to activate at random, e.g. a rock may bounce and roll when placed on a flat surface but will remain suspended on an incline despite only barely touching it.
  
• When dragging animals into new families, it usually ends up moving the wrong individual. Some practice is needed to make it more predictable, but it doesn't make the game unplayable. As of the latest update I've been informed by the dev that this issue has been fixed!
  
• The names of individuals and families (to my knowledge) cannot be edited and the species name does not show outside of the almanac's tree, making it unnecessarily tedious to know the details of the animal you have selected.
  
• The game frequently crashes at random. Normally, this is not too problematic as you can enable autosaving and it loads very quickly on a decent PC. However, on one unfortunate occasion, the game crashed in the middle of an autosave and I permanently lost my favorite freeplay vivarium. Edited to add that this has happened twice now. I really hate to say it but I may stop playing unless and until this is fixed. I'm going to reach out to the team and other players via the Discord first and will update this review again based on the outcome. Update: after looking into it with the resources provided on the Discord and finding nothing, I asked about the issue directly. The dev response was practically instant and I was told they would prioritize this problem and shown how to recover my files using a simple console command ( ~ to open console):
  
  devrestorebackups
  I'm quite pleased with the response and I'm more than happy to use this solution until the problem is fixed. This issue has been fixed as well!

I highly recommend you do the tutorial because there's a bit of a learning curve needed with this game.

Achievements <3
Adjusting/Fine Tuning
Admiring
Documenting
Labeling
Modifying
Tracking
Waiting

My First Tank
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2776259970

If you've played Element games where you combine to create a new element, you may like this. There's a lot of documenting changes so you can figure out which links are associated with which changes, like eyes, color, size. Once you get the hang of it your tank will become so lush with unique plants and critters.

Sometimes you may accidentally destroy your specimen so be careful with how much you change.

I have some issues with my left arm right now (likely carpal tunnel, but definitely a nerve issue) so I need to rest it. You can do that with this game.

This game would look really cool cast to a TV and hit z to hide the HUD ♥

large tank
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2776256807


Learning shortcuts is so helpful with games. I do recommend you learn a few to speed up your process. They are still working on the game. I had quick help via Discord. I had a question during the tutorial. Nearly instant help. :)

The unique critters and plants you make. You can try to find a way to shrink or grow the leaves.. Change shapes, colors and size of flowers. It becomes your own little world. It gets a bit slow when you have a bunch added to the lineage tree.

Fun to see the changes ♥

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2776257527

Got it on sale for $15.99 and if you like mutating and creating, you may like this game!

Summary: This is a fantasy for anyone wanting to play with science. If you are serious about it, you can fine tune each one to what you want, eventually. Comparing two similar is very important in finding the links to change/mutation. The DNA strains are the key.

You can label them. You can name your creation. This is deep management of species of plants & animals DNA evolution. Or you can just goof off and guess with any of them that light up when you compare them w/o naming the link in the chain. I find it more interesting to know what I'm changing and so far I only know a few of several versions of each (of the critters and of the plants/blooms) I have finally found fruit! I saw a few of the achieves available and they looked interesting to try for. I'll clean up the review later. Thanks for understanding.

19 March 2022 They updated the game big time but inventory is still a bit of a nuisance. I had to start over. I'm still broke in the game bc that reset, too. But I'm finally getting a bit further. They've added scorpions. I've yet to find them. I'm closer to horseshoe crab right now, and some funky ones haha. :)

So far, even though it's in alpha testing, it's an interesting game. The developer takes an active interest in it, and responds promptly to bug reports, along with pinpointing (most of the time) exactly where the problem is...or at least the general area, narrowing down what will come next.

I encourage other people to playtest it as well - the music is there, if somewhat muted, and it fits the environment of the vivarium the player creates.

A very fun game. I spent hours just trying to isolate a few codon functions. Seriously, it wasn't as boring as it sounds.

Downside, some things aren't balanced well, an incredible lack of information/support/tutorials/codex etc. You'll literally have to look up fan youtubes to do a lot things. Almost impossible to figure out yourself except through dumb luck.

The camera is weird too. For some reason closer things don't focus. It does nothing for the "ambiance" or whatever reason its there, its kind of a nuisance.

I'm definitely going to come back to this in a few months to see if its improved.

I recommend.

I started the game. I was confused at first. I went to the Discord server and the dev is straight up answering all the stupid questions I have- great game, a bit slow but if you like science and plants and stuff like I do it's definitely worth it.